My Unfolding Story I Mean, Adventure
by Yaya Sour
Summary: This is set as a far future regeneration, in our universe. Where Doctor Who is famous. I always wondered what would happen if The Doctor ever had a companion that knew everything the fans did. Now I guess we'll find out. Hope you like it!
1. Chapter 1

Aliyah's Unfolding Story Adventure

Chapter 1 

It's a Saturday morning, 8 am, and an alarm clock sounds in a tiny flat on the outskirts of London. A girl, brunette, petite, and fairly pretty rolls over in her bed and tries to hit the snooze button, knocking a pair of glasses to the floor as she does so. "Mnf~" she mumbles, rubbing her eyes before scooping the glasses from the floor and putting them on her face.

She looks to the calendar on the wall and sighs… Running a hand through her hair in frustration as she swings her legs over the side of the bed. That Saturday was circled and written on in red ink, the two words reading "BIG INTERVIEW!".

20 minutes later, the girl hops out of the shower and inexpertly dries her hair. She obviously does not do so often as she grimaces while it takes another 20 minutes. She comes back to the bedroom and looks at the clock, jumping and muttering curses under her breath as she flies around the apartment, getting dressed in a suit that was already laid out as she goes. Finally in make-up and the business wear, grabs her purse, a portfolio, and a piece of toast, putting on shoes as she leaves.

The girl next door is putting out some mail as the fairly pretty, early-20's brunette hops out the door, putting on her second shoe. "Hey, Aliyah!" the neighbor girl calls as Aliyah runs by, toast half eaten, "Good luck today!"  
>"Thanks, Jane!" She calls back, over her shoulder, with a remnant of an American accent, "I'll tell you how it goes when I get back!"<p>

She takes the underground to the center of the city, then walks several blocks until she reaches a huge office building, The Times' headquarters, going several floors up to reach the top journalism office. "Hello, may I help you?" The personal secretary asks. "Yeah, my name is Aliyah Sauer. I'm here for an 11:30 interview for the Journalist job." She answers, nervous.

The secretary smiles and says kindly, "I'll tell him you're here. Please take a seat-" gesturing to the chairs that Aliyah completely missed on the way in. Aliyah smiles and murmurs, "Thanks…" before taking a chair and pulling out a miniature crossword book from her purse.

After about 20 minutes, or 5 crossword puzzles, the secretary stands and says, "Let me just check on what's going on…"

She disappears into the next room and there's a faint buzzing and the light seems to flicker under the door. Aliyah assumes one of the lights in his office must be dying, and after a few minutes the woman comes back out. Her eyes are slightly glazed as she turns to the young journalist, saying, "I'm sorry, Ms. Sauer. It seems all the positions have been filled. If you would like to leave your portfolio, we will keep it on file for future job openings."

_Back at the apartment…_

"How twisted is that? I didn't even get an interview. Not a handshake. Nothing!"  
>Aliyah sat on Jane's couch, gesturing with the spoon she was using on a pint of self-pity ice cream.<p>

Jane sat opposite, licking the spoon to her own sympathy ice cream. "I bet he's sleeping with her-" she said in her welsh-turned-londoner accent, "It's a stereotype for a reason." She added, digging her spoon into her pint like the ice cream had personally wronged her.

Jane, about Aliyah's age, was tall and willowy with fiery red hair.

"Oh great. I lost an interview with The Times for my favorite journalist spot so Mr. Boss-man can get a piece of-"  
>"Ask if they have any freelance positions, then!" Jane interrupted sensibly. "After all, even one article in The Times is a great addition to your résumé." However, Aliyah was a bit too depressed to be sensible. "Hmm. I dunno… Maybe I'll call back tomorrow evening." she said as she picked at her pint of frozen goodness.<p>

~~~  
>Two chick flicks and a phone call later, and Aliyah is back in her own apartment, reheating leftover Chinese. She sighs and sits down at the tiny excuse for a table, taking out that day's newspaper, highlighting and copying as she eats. After combing the job section three times and organizing it, she gives up and throws it aside, along with the highlighter, turning her attention to the news.<p>

She reads through the political dribble that is the day's headline, mentally fixing mistakes the editor made. Then she moves on to the Art and Science sections, taking her time on her favorite articles. After she finishes that, she throws most of the paper aside, keeping a few science journal items in front of her as she pulls out her laptop.

The laptop is actually incredibly tiny, and more accurately described as a netbook. Chic, black, and equipped only with a media player, word, and the internet, there is already very little space. So she stores everything on data sticks.

She immediately pulls out a keychain completely covered in flash drives, all of which are individually labeled. She quickly and deftly locates one simply marked "3", plugging it in like she's done this a thousand times, before typing away for two and a half hours, occasionally referencing one of the articles. After the rather short block of writing is over, she saves it before putting everything away.

She looks at the glowing digits on her clock that tell her it's 10:45 and sighs, clearing the table and putting the computer, flash-drives, and a small stack of manuscripts and portfolios into a briefcase.

The takes of het blouse, bra, and the bottom half of her suit before slipping on silky pyjama pants and an oversized t-shirt before slipping back into bed. She ends up staring out the small window seen from her pillow- at the stars- for several more hours before sleep finally takes her.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

Aliyah's Unfolding Story Adventure

Chapter 2 

All too soon, Aliyah's alarm goes off at 6 am, and she easily turns it off. She sits up in bed and rubs her eyes, glasses askew from sleeping with them on. She gets up slowly and pads softly into the kitchen, making herself tea and oatmeal for breakfast before once again taking out the laptop. She looks at the key ring full of flash drives and runs a hand through her hair. After a moment she shakes her head and murmurs, "She is _so_ gonna kill me…" as she once again plugs the flash drive marked "3" into the computer.

This time, however, she also plays a DVD, letting her favorite television show- Doctor Who- play as she writes.

After two episodes, she turns it off and switches USB's. She pulls a hub out of her briefcase and plugs in three thumb drives, one marked "Agt. Prompts," one "Agt. Research," and one simply "Music." Aliyah stares at the monitor for a bit, music playing softly in the background, before starting to type. For the next hour, she fights severe writer's block, falling into a pattern of typing and deleting, typing and deleting… Only getting one really good paragraph and no idea where to go with the plot by 8:30.

She sighs, frustrated, and packs everything up, key ring in purse, all else in briefcase, before immediately running to get dressed. By nine, she's out the door- made up and dressed in a casual interview outfit, purse on her shoulder and briefcase in hand. By the time she reaches the Underground, she's already fishing in her purse for her handy-dandy hardcover notebook. She finds it and looks up the pre-planned route for job applications that she drew out the previous night. She quickly figures out the nearest stop to her first location and buys a ticket. As she rides the train, she keeps the notebook out, writing down any passing thoughts she might have, switching sections as the topic changes.

Finally, she hits her stop and starts making the rounds- applying for anything from writer to editor to (as much as the idea pains her) secretary.

As she leaves the third location, she passes the building for The Times. Jane forced her to call the night before, only to console her when three attempts got three different voicemails after odd conversations with the receptionist. Now Aliyah could start to imagine why. There were several black vans outside the building and large black plastic crates were being moved inside. Aliyah, totally baffled, assumes that there must be some major shift happening at the newspaper. The most likely concept being that these new people were buying the building. What seemed odd, though, was that nobody seemed to notice that people were moving in. Usually there would be a big to-do and reporters, or at the very least a hometown journalist. Even a notice in the past few days' papers would be likely for _anything_ happening at the headquarters. Yet, no body even seemed to notice the vans. As far as Aliyah could tell, she was the only one who saw them… Or cared.

So, being behind schedule anyway, she did the normal human response of walking on, forgetting about it for the present.

As the day wore on, she continued to hear nothing about the Times building. The journalist within her soon started to get antsy. No one was even gossiping about the fact that the entire Times headquarters was being taken over by men and women with black vans. So, she re-wrote her scheduled route home, skipping three applications to do so, just to see the building again. And maybe do some snooping of her own.

She finally gets there and everything seems… Normal.  
>No boxes, no vans.<br>She had to do a double take to make sure she really saw nothing, and to make sure they didn't just move. She immediately walks into the building, pulling out an old journalist ID from her purse, just in case, as she enters. When she looks up, everything looks completely average. Aliyah shakes her head, trying to clear it, _knowing _what she saw that morning.

She sighs and decides to at least go ask about freelance positions in person since she's there. She follows her previous day's route up to the head of journalism, when a strange man barrels through.

He was wearing sharp black pants, a pair of black leather boots, a midnight blue button up shirt, the odd accessory of a black leather dog collar, what looked like a dark black cloak draped over one arm, and what looked like a slick silver wand in his free hand.

While he wasn't exactly tall, he was still taller than Aliyah. He had long-ish, side-swept jet-black hair, pale skin and a slightly pointed face. He was definitely different, though not unattractively so. The midnight blue in his shirt accented his eyes, emphasizing them- Midnight blue on the outside and gradually getting lighter as it moves in, making them reminiscent of the moon reflected on an arctic lake. And behind those eyes was such power that at one look, Aliyah jumped out of his way.

He flew by like he was trying to out-run a stampede, but nobody seemed to notice.  
>Rather, nobody except Aliyah.<p>

She watched him turn a corner before muttering to herself, "Oh… What the hell?" and chasing after him, managing to just catch sight of the corner of his cloak as the man turned another corner. She practically flies around it herself, trying to catch up, when she comes to a stop. She's met with a dead-end hallway full of doors. She walks slowly to the mid-point, stopping and biting her lip as she decides what to do next.

Suddenly, she hears a door open behind her, and a high, slightly musical male voice hisses, "In here. Quickly!" before a hand closes around her arm and drags her with surprising strength into a broom cupboard.

"Now, hush." says the voice behind her, and they both fall completely still. Aliyah, in shock and unable to ask questions, resorts to biting her tongue and keeping herself from visibly trembling. A minute or so passes when she feels a soft, cool breath on her ear as the voice says quietly, "Close your eyes and don't open them until I tell you." It's said with such urgency and what Aliyah can only assume is a fight-or-flight reflex that Aliyah does so. She opens her mouth to question the motivation when the door bangs open and she hears a lot of sounds very quickly. There's a familiar buzzing and an unearthly shriek then the voice shouts, over the din, "NOW!"

Aliyah opens her eyes and sees an ethereal, shimmery blue creature shielding it's eyes as the man from earlier points the, now glowing white at the tip and buzzing metal wand at it's face. The only differences are that the man is now wearing the cloak, as well as a pair of Ray-Bans.

He takes her hand in his free with another bout of surprising strength and shouts, "Come on-" before dragging her back up the hallway. They reach the corner and turn away from where they came, barreling down a few empty hallways before reaching a deserted office. The man practically throws Aliyah inside as he turns to the door, closing it and using the wand on the handle. She hears a loud 'click' and he turns to her, pulling off the shades.

"Now," he says, attention fully on her, "How did you see me?"

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

Aliyah's Unfolding Story Adventure

Chapter 3

"Wait, what?" Aliyah squeaks, "How could I _not_ see you? You came barreling down the hallway like you were being chased by lions!" She takes a breath, something she feels hasn't happened since being shoved into the closet.

"Because-" the man says, taking over at her pause, "I'm wearing this." He pulls out a chain from under his shirt, revealing a silver and green lump that might have once been a key. For some reason, she feels like she shouldn't look at it. Instead, she looks back into his eyes as he continues, "You shouldn't even be able to see that, let alone acknowledge my existence. How is that possible?"

He had moved towards her as he talked and was now very close, his moonlight eyes searching hers as if for answers.

Suddenly there's another shriek from down the hallway they just left, and the man snaps back to reality. "I haven't got time to explain, but you have to come with me. That door won't hold it off for long." He says, quickly moving to the far corner of the room.

Aliyah shakes her head in amazement at such a quick shift before noticing what he was moving to.

In that corner sits a Police Box. But, it's a bit… Different. It's from a decade other than the 1960's, that's for sure. It had taken on the coloring of whatever was behind it, becoming just an outline against the wall, easily missed on a first look about the room. And that was without the same feeling that she shouldn't be looking at it.

Her eyes widen at the familiar outline and her jaw drops before shaking her head, dismissing the image as a figment of her imagination before looking again, thinking that maybe she'd only imagined…

But no, she looks again to find the man open the door to the definitely solid and quite real, semi-visible Police Box. He stops in the doorway and turns to her, one eyebrow raised, saying, "Get in. Now." Before quickly disappearing inside. The creature shrieks again and the office door rattles dangerously. Aliyah immediately runs to the box, turning and closing the door behind her.

She hears the man say, "I'll give you the tour later, just hang on," from behind her, not having turned from the door yet.

The floor shakes and jolts, forcing Aliyah to lose her footing and fall. When she looks up from her hands and knees, she sees a gigantic, brightly lit, black room with a Sapphire blue column in the center. Wrapped around the column is a slanted black table with an obviously organized system of levers, buttons, and other controls, all in black, chrome, and varying shades of blue. The man is practically throwing himself around it as he struggles to work the thing, gritting his teeth and hissing curses. "Come on, girl- just get us back!" He shouts over the din of whirring that the machine makes.

The floor bucks again, sending Aliyah back against it before everything settles down.

She stands up shakily, finally able to take in the huge cavern of a room.

The walls are jet black, making the room seem five times bigger. This effect is aided by the fact that they are curved, forming a domed ceiling above. Running up the walls are bright, white, circular lights; beginning at the floor, no bigger than an LED light, growing as they climb up the walls, creating arches. This adds to how large the room seems, giving it a horizon-like effect.

Where she is standing seems to be an entryway- she'd fallen on a silver metal grate that was the floor. Just in front of her is a ramp with a silver rail on either side. The rails are curved, forming what, at first glance, seems to be an enclosed ring in the center of the room, encasing the main area which seems to be slightly raised from the rest of the floor. The ramp in front of her leads to the raised area, in the center of which is is the sloped table surrounding the column she saw before. A few feet behind that, she can see now, is a break in the railing, and what she supposes is a ramp to the lower, outer sections of the room. At the very back and to the right is a silver spiral staircase, made with the game grate and rails as the rest of the room, that leads into portals in both the floor and ceiling.

The man is now leaning against the central table, arms folded across his chest and one eyebrow raised, almost amused as he watches her reaction.

"Welcome to the TARDIS. I'm The Doctor," he says in his light, musical voice. "And I know," The Doctor adds with a smirk, "It's bigger on the inside."

***


	4. Chapter 4

Aliyah's Unfolding Story Adventure

Chapter 4

She blacked out.

She must have eaten too close to when she fell asleep, because when her alarm went off, she woke up with the most incredible dream. But no matter, she had an interview today.

And then she opened her eyes… And she wasn't in her apartment. She was in a room she'd never seen and 'her alarm' was coming from outside the door.

Any and all thoughts of it being a dream are then shattered as the man – no, The Doctor – comes in, crosses his arms, and leans against the doorframe. "Ah, You're awake."

He walks over and leans over her, pulling out the thin, silver wand again and aims it at her, the buzz and light disconcertingly familiar. "You fainted," he explains, "Don't worry. It happens to more than you'd think. Just a bit of culture shock."

"Like Rose?" she asks automatically.

He just looks at her, eyes empty, "Who's Rose?" And anyone could tell by the slight tilt of his head that the name is totally unfamiliar to him.

"R-rose," Aliyah stutters, "Um… Sh-she's a… A friend. Of mine. Back in America, a friend of mine from… When I was growing up." She frowns slightly, more than a bit confused, but manages to catch the slight frown that crosses The Doctor's face. "What's that look for?"

He looks away, eyes sad for a moment as he says, "Just reminds me of someone. She had a flower's name, too. Lily." He moves away, though, and his eyes harden and close off again. "She's gone now. You should be, too. Where do you want to be dropped off?"

She blinks at him, quickly guessing exactly which nerve she struck, and stammers as she tries to find the right words. "What!" she finally settles on, "Are you nuts?"

He just raises one eyebrow, nothing amused about his expression, now. "You're the one that's mad! It's dangerous! You practically got run over by blundering in, and you obviously can't handle it. You _fainted_." His eyes flash, obviously not one who backs down easily. Well, it's a good thing she isn't either.

Aliyah's eyes flash, her face setting into determined lines. "I just went from spending my life writing stories of things this extraordinary under the heading of fiction, to being shoved into a closet, chased by a shrieking _thing_, and then tossed into a semi-visible police box that is _bigger on the inside_! I think I have a right to faint." She sticks out her chin, sitting ram-rod straight, and crosses her arms.

He would be amazed but for one little thing: "You said that you're American – and you certainly sound like you are… How do you know what a police box is?" He's looking at her, eyes searching her face, and she freezes again.

She stills in her determined position though, so it doesn't seem like she even misses a beat when she replies, "I'm trying to become a citizen and my friends don't really... give me helpful information."

Even if she isn't being entirely honest, the reply does manage to pull a bit of a smile from him. "Fine," he ends up relenting, "You can stay. But-" And, at that, he turns back into his hard, closed-off self, "If you can't cut it, I'm taking you out of here. I don't need you to go and get yourself killed." He turns to leave and she can hear him mumble, "Not on my watch…" before she hears a call from down the hallway, "Coming?"

She scrambles after him and leaves the room behind, only just managing to catch up by seeing him turn the corner.

"So," she says once at his side, "Bigger on the inside. How many rooms are there?"

She swears she saw him smile for half of a second, but it was so small and fast it could have just been the light. "Don't know. They're always moving and changing, so there's never a, ah… Set number."

Though they walk the rest of the way in silence, they're definitely sizing each other up. Neither is going to be underestimated this time.

"So," The Doctor says, moving straight to the console, "If you're going to help me, you might as well know I'm not human."

Aliyah rolls her eyes, "Yeah, like a barely-visible box that's bigger on the inside is _totally_ from Earth." Now that she's over the shock of him being real, she's definitely taking it in stride.

"Yes," he says, "Well, just making sure you're not going to pass out on me again." This time, the smirk is unmistakable, his eyes flicking over her almost as if to check that she's okay.

The look on his face is just one that she returns, though, as she says, "Oh, I dunno. I might just faint if you end up eating safety pins or something." She walked over to the console, her hands resting on it so that she can lean over to tease him back.

Apparently she found another nerve, though, since he frowns and mumbles something sounding like, "Why do they always assume safety pins…?" He also moves her away from the console, backing her up to the rail with a simple, "Don't touch. I don't want to end up in Africa."

He then moves back to the console and starts setting a course, prompting Aliyah to ask, "Africa? Should I even ask?" She's teasing and it pulls the slightly amused look from him again.

"No," he says, "But you definitely should hold on tight." He throws one lever and suddenly the floor jolts. She would have fallen or been sent sprawling had she not held on when he said, although she was definitely prepared this time around. And once the ride was over, she followed on his heels as he ran out the front door… And into a dark alley.

"Oh my Gods. It's dark. How long was I out?" she asks, trying to make up for the lost time.

"Only 'bout an hour," he says, the wand out again as he works on a door, "Did I mention it travels in time?" He nods back to the box just as sparks fly and the door opens. "Well, come on, then. You did want to follow?" He flashes a smirk at her before vanishing inside, expecting her to follow. And she doesn't disappoint.

In their haste, neither of them sees the shadow pass over the side door as it swings shut behind them.

_((A/N: Thank you so, so much to IMarriedMyFandoms, they're amazing and if they weren't as excited over this as they were, I probably would have let this story just sort of fade away. Also, this installment wouldn't have the same smooth flow if that same person wasn't my beta~ And an amazing beta at that. You definitely earned the title of The Doctor, here xD))_


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